Home From the Dead

Prologue

Nick and Heath came into the house like they really didn't want to. They were tired. They'd searched the area around Rockville for days, talked to everyone they could buttonhole. They were frustrated with the Mathews family because they had sold out and left, but the locals said they doubted the lawyer was with them. They had one hired hand, but he didn't look or act like any lawyer. All that was left to say that Jarrod had ever been there was his injured horse and the personal items the horse carried.

Finally, they changed their search to one for a body, looking in every ravine and bunch of bushes and still finding no trace at all of their brother. They had to face an ugly truth – that if Jarrod had been thrown from his horse, as it appeared, he had probably been killed and some animal had dragged him off – and the rest of it turned their stomachs so bad they couldn't think about it. They certainly weren't going to tell their mother and sister about it.

Victoria and Audra met them eagerly at the door – and then slumped to see their faces. Nick just said, "He's gone, Mother."

"No," she said. "We have to try something else if you didn't find him. His picture in some newspapers, something like that."

Heath said, "We can try that."

"But I don't want you to get your hopes up," Nick said. "From what we learned, it looks like he was thrown from his horse and – well, that's all we could find. There's nothing else. He's gone."

Victoria shook her head, but the tears came. "No. No."

Chapter 1

The dark-haired man with the piercing blue eyes took great care in what he was doing. Cutting leather for new reins and harnesses was a risky job. You could cut your hand easily, even through gloves, and sometimes that led to a nasty cut and, worse, that dreaded lockjaw. Lockjaw would kill you, a horrible pain-filled death. You had to be very careful with tools as sharp as the tools you needed to cut leather.

He was fine today, finished the job and put the tools away without even a nick to his gloves. He picked up one of the old harnesses that needed new leather and began to take the old leather out of it. That was when the boss, Mr. Carlisle, came in.

He looked up. "Morning, Mr. Carlisle," he said and stopped what he was doing.

"Dakota," Mr. Carlisle said. He was a decent and fair man. He knew Dakota's history – what there was of it – and treated him like anybody else. If there were wanted posters and criminal charges on Dakota somewhere else, Mr. Carlisle didn't care. As long as Dakota was a good worker and caused no trouble here, Mr. Carlisle was happy.

This morning he was carrying a newspaper. Dakota looked at it as Mr. Carlisle handed it to him.

"It's a year old," Mr. Carlisle said. "Somebody left it at the stage depot last night. I was there to check the schedules and picked it up out of curiosity. Found that picture."

Dakota saw that the newspaper was folded to reveal a photograph. His heart started beating faster. The photo was of him – Dakota – only he was in a suit with a string tie, not in working clothes. The wording underneath gave a name and said this man was missing. It gave an address to contact – Barkley Ranch, Stockton, California.

Dakota looked up. He had no words.

Mr. Carlisle said, "If you want to go check it out, I'll give you your pay. You'll always be welcome here if you want to come back – in case this isn't you or you just don't want it to be."

Dakota was stunned. He really didn't know what he wanted. In all this time, with all the searching he'd done, it never occurred to him that someone was looking for him, too. He looked at the photo again. "Jarrod Barkley."

"Does it sound familiar?" Mr. Carlisle asked.

Dakota shook his head. "Not at all, but I suppose that doesn't mean anything."

"If it were me," Mr. Carlisle said, "if I were in your shoes, I'd go check it out. Like I said, if this is you and you just don't like being Jarrod Barkley, you can always come back here. You're a good hand."

Dakota said, "I suppose I'd better check it out at least."

Mr. Carlisle gave him a slap on the arm. "Come get your pay. You can take a horse into town, leave it at the livery. You can still catch the afternoon stage to Reno."

Dakota sighed with a small laugh. "I don't relish that long ride to Reno, but I guess I'll be doing it. If I am this Jarrod Barkley – well, maybe I'll be able to answer a lot of questions, at least."

Mr. Carlisle nodded. "Come on into the house."

XXXXXX

The stage coach ride was dreadfully long and bumpy. It took days to get to Reno – partly because of a broken axle and some nasty weather. But they finally made it there, and Dakota caught the west bound train the same day he arrived in town.

The train wasn't much better than the stage, although it was faster. The seats were hard and uncomfortable, but there were no delays and the train rolled into Sacramento on time. But with the train to Stockton, he wasn't so lucky. A rockslide had damaged the track. There would be no service for quite a while. With a sigh, Dakota bought space on another stage coach that was leaving the next day.

Sacramento was too big and expensive a town for his taste and his wallet, so he found a cheap boarding house and settled in there. The owner was a widow with a fifteen-year-old son who helped her out. Dakota took a nice dinner with them, then retreated to his room.

Relaxing in a pretty nice bed there, he took the newspaper clipping out of his pocket for the n'th time and looked at it. It was so very strange, looking at a stranger who could be you. It gave him almost an out of body feeling, like he was floating somewhere between the man he was and the man this picture said he was. He hadn't worked up the courage to ask anyone along the way to Sacramento if they knew this Jarrod Barkley, and was he him. He took a guess – from the clothes in this picture, this Jarrod Barkley did not travel in the same working man circles as he, Dakota, did. This Jarrod Barkley looked like he had two nickels to rub together, and probably never got his hands dirty. Could this Jarrod Barkley possibly be him?

He went out to look for a saloon and get a drink. He passed up the ones that looked like they charged pretty high prices – and he bet Jarrod Barkley wouldn't pass them up. But he found a simpler place where the clientele looked more like he did. He had a beer, watched some poker but did not risk his meager funds in playing any, bought a drink for a pretty young lady but passed on her other ideas for their time together. After an hour or so, he headed back to the boarding house. The next day he was on a stagecoach to Stockton.

When he stepped out of the coach there, he immediately went to the local livery and got a shock. The man there looked at him like he was a ghost – he actually did turn several shades paler.

"I'd like to buy a horse," Dakota said.

"Well, sure, Mr. Barkley," the man stammered. "Shall I just put it on the Barkley account?"

Dakota was stunned for a moment. Put it on an account and he could just ride away? Is that what this Jarrod Barkley lived like? "Yeah, for now, do that. I might be returning it, but if I don't, I'll settle up with the Barkleys."

The man looked confused at what Dakota said, but he said, "Yes, sir, and I guess you'll need saddle and tack, too."

"Yeah," Dakota said.

"Comin' right up."

The service was very satisfying. If this was the way Jarrod Barkley lived, maybe it wouldn't be all that bad. Unless, of course, Jarrod Barkley got this kind of service because he was a dangerous man who scared people every time he came into view. Dakota wondered again who he really was.

In a few minutes, he mounted up. "Can you direct me to the Barkley ranch?" he asked the liveryman.

The man looked startled. "You don't know the way?"

"It's been a while," Dakota said and grabbed an excuse for asking out of thin air. "Stockton's grown a bit, looks different."

The man pointed. "Take the main road here to your right and keep on going straight. You'll see the sign for the ranch in about an hour."

Dakota nodded his thanks and took off.

XXXXXXX

It was nearing five o'clock in the evening when Dakota rode under the sign that said he was on the Barkley ranch. He kept on going, noticing ranch hands coming and going. Only a handful of them seemed to look at him, and among them very few looked at him like they were startled to see him. He rode on. What looked like the main housing complex came into view. Big white house, several barns and out buildings, a couple bunkhouses. As he rode closer, Dakota began to get nervous. This place was bigger than Mr. Carlisle's spread, bigger than any spread he could remember. Was it really possible that he belonged here?

Because it wasn't jogging his memory in the slightest.

He rode up to the house. In the stable yard, a confused looking Mexican man took his horse without a word. Dakota nodded his thanks and went up to the front door. It was big, solid oak, with a knocker in the center. He knocked several times, then looked around at the impressive pillars and big windows.

The door opened. A small, older black man in very handsome coat and tie suddenly turned white at the sight of him. Dakota took his hat off and smiled. "Are any of the Barkleys available?" he asked.

The black man stuttered and almost fell down where he stood, but he opened the door further and stepped aside, saying, "Come in. I'll get Mrs. Barkley."

Dakota stepped inside, into a huge foyer with a grand staircase leading to a second floor. There was a parlor off to his left, big with a fireplace that looked to be about the size of a regular room in a regular house. These people had money. Lots of money.

Several people suddenly came hurrying through a pair of double doors to his right – an older woman, a young blonde woman, and two men, both tall but one dark-haired and the other blond. They all stopped and stared at him, and for a minute he thought the older woman was going to faint dead away. But instead she came over to him and took his free hand, then she ran her hand over his chest like she didn't believe he was really standing there.

He was always the darkest of her children, and now he was even darker, obviously from a lot of time in the sun. There were more lines in his face, and his hand was rough and calloused where once it was a lawyer's hand, smoother and easier. But those eyes – even though there was no real joy in them, no sparkle at all, they were still that bright blue that made everyone stare at them in surprise. She knew who this man was. There was no doubt in her mind at all.

She said, "Oh, Jarrod."